The answer was perhaps not surprising; the creators of the ships would not want a defective Guardian ship to even consider attempting to dock with a Hunter, or vice versa. He sighed, there was something about this that cried out for more research but it just wasn’t a profitable line on enquiry, the Hunter ship would ash them at the first opportunity, there would not be any chance of docking.
“Image request, remove the Guardian ship.”
He went back to his foe and his seemingly impossible quest, how to defeat it. Many questions later he knew a lot about the Hunter ship, how one moved through space, how it’s many weapon systems operated and what its sensor capabilities were. But he still did not have a plan.
What he did have was a rumbling stomach and a growing thirst, he decided to take a break. Entering the kitchen he spied a new addition and pulled open the fridge door. A mouth-watering selection of foods met his gaze.
“Oh yes!” He laughed. “We are going to pig out bigtime.”
Ingredients found their way into various pots and pans and the kitchen filled with the aromas of herbs, meat and vegetables, triggering Guardian’s internal sensors.
A dark blob appeared in the room beside the hob, the source of most of the complex molecules that were evaporating into the air.
“Don’t you ever knock?” Eamon asked, his head inside the fridge as he retrieved a can of beer. But he was grinning as he turned round to see the blob.
“My sensors detected organic degradation products, you could have been in trouble.” Guardian defended its unannounced ‘arrival’.
“Just cooking Guardian.” Eamon waved happily at the hob and took a swig of the cold beer. “Ahhh, great.”
“Understood, I’ll be off then.”
“Hold on. Eating is a social thing, stay put.”
Guardian was nonplussed by the difference in Eamon’s attitude, previously he wanted to be alone, now he wanted company. Obviously this was another manifestation of his new hybrid personality but it did not make interacting with him easy. 

Eamon strolled over and lifted a lid on a simmering pot and scented the air.
“Mmm, nearly done. I appreciate the attempt at manifestation Guardian.” He said looking at the blob. “Want to try refining it?”
“What for? You can see it fine.”
“Well for a start it would be nicer to be able to look you in the face over dinner.”
“I haven’t got a face.” Guardian answered needlessly.
“Which we should now change. This new me relates better to someone than a disembodied something.” Eamon explained removing various bits of cutlery from a drawer and laying them out on the table. “Go on, try something.”
Guardian scanned its vast archive of humanity and opted for a character from Eamons planetary home city.
“Wha’ ‘appenin’.”
Eamon looked at the burly Rasta and merely raised an eyebrow slightly. It had not been a recommendation.
“Anything I can do?” An immaculately dressed city suit enquired.
Eamon shook his head with a smile and continued to ferry objects to the table.
“Well you’re not being very helpful you know.” A spectacularly well-endowed peroxide blond pouted.
“It’s not me that you need to satisfy Guardian. This is about you, what you feel most comfortable in as your manifestation.”
“But I don’t have feelings Eamon.” Guardian protested as it returned to its blob form.
“Approximate them Guardian. Consider your function, compare that with your database of humans and identify one that best matches what you do.” Eamon coached him whilst carving meat from a bogus joint, his attention entirely on the task at hand.
The blob went through a series of flash changes as Guardian assumed various guises in line with Eamon’s suggestions. When Eamon turned around with a plate of meat in his hand a small man with short iron grey hair and dressed in a silk kimono bowed to him. The oriental face was round and rather flat, gentle wrinkles around the eyes suggesting age.
“In this form I …feel comfortable.” The man said in English but his accent carrying strong overtones of Japanese descent.
“Excellent Guardian. Please, sit down.” Eamon indicated the set place opposite where he now stood at the table.
“Thank you.” Guardian responded with a slight nod and considered the first obstacle, moving the chair out from the table so that the manifestation would be able to ‘sit down’ as though it was corporeal. A simple force field sufficed to achieve this and then draw the chair back in.
“Care to join me?” Eamon asked waving a hand over the spread of food. “There’s more than enough for two.”
“No thank you.” Guardian replied, how could it even begin to ingest food in a realistic manner? “I am not hungry.” Problem solved by a Human excuse.
“Perhaps a little wine?” Eamon offered the bottle. “Your bogus Beaujolais, fine bouquet.”
Intrigued by the interplay of social manners and now challenged twice to demonstrate its abilities Guardian joined in the game.
“Just a little.”
Eamon came around the table to pour wine into the glass at Guardian’s place then returned to his chair and sat down. Whilst his companion loaded his plate with food Guardian was calculating the necessary force field parameters based upon the strength, shape and frictional qualities of the glass.
“Your good health Guardian.” Eamon said smiling as he raised his glass across the table.
“Your health too Eamon.” Guardian replied and delicately gripping the glass in a tripartite force field moved it to where it would just touch Eamon’s glass with a satisfying clink.
Eamon watched in fascination as the apparently real Japanese man opposite him raised the glass to his lips and tipping it slightly took a small sip of the wine.
“A good year, light and fruity. One of my better vintages.” Guardian quipped.
Eamon took a drink, it was indeed a very pleasant taste but even more rewarding was Guardian’s performance.

“Guardian that is terrific.” He enthused.
“Really?” Guardian enquired eying the wine.
“Not just the wine but the whole deal with drinking it. I swear you really were drinking it.”
“Indeed I was. I used force fields to mimic the human mouth and throat muscle and tissue. A fascinating exercise in data modelling and feedback control.”
“So you could eat if you wanted to.” Eamon enthused.
“Yes, but the movements are more complex than you might suppose. I will need to ‘practice’ before I feel confident to eat in your company.” Guardian answered Eamon with a shy smile. “It’s very strange. I have possessed all of this data for more than twenty years, yet until now I have never truly appreciated any of it; and certainly I have not understood the subtleties of such a ‘simple’ act as drinking.” Guardian paused to take another sip from the wine glass. “That part of the data assimilation falls to the Traveller.”
“Welcome to my world Guardian.” Eamon smiled and started in on his meal with gusto.
The following ‘morning’ Eamon awoke with a classic hangover having relaxed far too much over the meal and drunk way too much of the bogus booze Guardian had synthesised. His bleary eyes barely focussed upon a figure beside the bed, how had he made it to his bed? The figure bowed slightly and proffered a glass of liquid.
“I have studied the effects of over indulgence upon your biology. You are suffering from a hangover are you not?”
“That’s one term for it.” Eamon mumbled through the throbbing misery that currently occupied his skull to breaking point.
“Please drink this, it will help you.”
Sitting up did not seem the sensible thing to do in his present state but gently pinioned by Guardian’s force fields he was helped upright. He grasped the glass with an unsure hand while his companion steadied it delicately and brought it up to his mouth.
“Uuurghh!” He exclaimed as its smell reached his nostrils and would have dropped the glass had guardian not gripped it more firmly. “That’s rank, I’d throw up if I drank it.” He protested.
“I think not Eamon. True, the formulation does have a strong smell to you but the contents are designed to prevent such a spontaneous regurgitation. It will be quickly absorbed from your stomach and ease your discomfort. Drink.”
With the gentle insistence ringing in his addled brain and thinking it couldn’t get much worse, he drank and waited for the worst. He was lowered back down onto the pillows. A faint sharp taste lingered in his mouth, not at all what he had expected in the light of the noxious smell. Odd that the one sense could be so at odds with it’s closely related other.
“How are you feeling now?”
“I don’t know. Things have gone quiet inside.” He replied to the enquiry, laying a hand on his previously queasy stomach.
“It will be a few minutes before all parts of your body are suffused, the proper effects will only be felt then.”
“What was in it?”
“A melange of organic compounds, some to counteract the toxic effects of the breakdown products of the wine you so enjoyed, others are catalysts that detoxify those breakdown products still active inside you.”
“Catalysts?”
“They have the qualities of what you would understand by the term enzyme, but they are not made of human protein. You need not worry they will degrade into harmless components.
“Never mind the techtalk, this stuff is doing the business, I’m feeling better already.”
“There is a second drink that you need to consume now to effect the complete remission of your hangover.” Guardian said offering him another glass.
“What’s in this one?” Eamon asked as he sat up unaided and eyed the milky fluid in the glass, sniffing it suspiciously.
“Essentially it is fuel for the catalytic reactions.”
The liquid had a pale blue tinge to its milkiness but it had no odour that he could detect. He upended it in one gulp. Moments later his mouth exploded, or that was the sensation that he equated the event too.
“Wha…?” He gasped pointing to the glass.
“As I said, fuel. The first drink only had a limited quantity in it so as not to cause this reaction. I should perhaps have cautioned you to sip it slowly.”
“That would have been useful.” Eamon said as his taste buds quietened down.
“My apologies.”
Swinging his legs out of bed Eamon stood up cautiously and found that the two drinks had indeed cleared up his hangover and he could think about the day ahead. Right now two thoughts dominated, a shower and food.
“Good.” Guardian commented observing the positive outcome and turned to leave.
“Hey Guardian.”
The figure turned.
“Thanks for that. I’ll see you later, okay?”
The figure bowed and exited through the door, literally.